I was reading an email this morning from the Relevant Network, a resource for leaders of young adult ministries put out by Relevant Magazine (great magazine, by the way). Their email focused on an interview with Phil Wyman, pastor of The Gathering Church in Salem, Mass. and about some of the ways that the church is reaching out to the pagan community in Salem.

What struck me was the following question/answer. Phil was in the midst of talking about an event the church had sponsored recently which discussed, "God: For People Who Hate the Church" - a seminar about reaching those who identify with God but who struggled with organized Christianity.

What's the biggest challenge in going into communities that "hate church"?
Us.

Christian leaders are the biggest challenge. We do silly things like assume that if people avoid church they must also hate God, or are uninterested in spirituality. We hang out our shingle, or throw our little Christian parties and expect people to show up. We have developed ways of doing church, which may work for some people, but are uninteresting, or even offensive, to others. Instead of changing our style of gathering for those who don't appreciate our Christian culture, we change our style of music, and expect that to be the answer.

Our inability to adapt to another culture makes us the biggest challenge in connecting with those who dislike church.

I think he is right on. In fact, Phil says that when he first moved to Salem from Southern California to plant a church, "I remarked early in our move to Salem that it would not be the witches who would cause us trouble, but Christians. Like Jesus, who was not persecuted by unbelievers, but by the religious leaders, we anticipated anger and misunderstanding from certain Christian circles."

Whenever we confront the religion of Jesus' day and those who were its leader, we tend to talk about them like they are "the Others" on Lost - people with whom we may share some similarities, but who are, in our opinion, wholly different. We never imagine that we, in fact, might actually be counted with the lot of them had Jesus chosen to arrive on planet Earth in 2007.

This is a struggle - especially when you are trying to reach young adults who for the most part have a preconceived aversion to organized religion. It's not Jesus with whom they take issue.

In some ways I think it would be easier to reach them outside the confines & structure of a traditional church (not 'traditional' so much in the sense of the church's practices, but more in the fact that it represents a group of organized believers). Wouldn't it be easier to come alongside them and say, "Yeah, the church makes me sick a lot of times, too!"? Would Paul have become a 'church bashing cynical open-to-Jesus' kind of guy in order to reach 'church bashing cynical open-to-Jesus' people? I'm not so sure.

I've had my fair share of cynicism directed at the Church (both big & little 'C'). As a young adult myself I have to fight the temptation to complain and be frustrated with the Body of Christ. Yet, I can't escape it. I can't walk away. I can't grab my bag and vow to reach out to others like me by forsaking who (& whose) I am.

Like it or not, I am the Body of Christ, I am the Church. And because of this, I have already been 'organized' by my Savior. Whether I choose to meet together in a building with a steeple on Sunday mornings, or grab a beer with unbelievers in a bar while discussing theology, I can't escape the fact that Jesus has grafted me with other God followers and I'm in it for life.

So, I'm faced with the difficult, but God-given, desire to reach out as the Church to a generation which tends to dislike the church. I think that the difficulty makes the results all the more fulfilling - because I know that God has to be the one to break down the barriers, and He will be the one to receive the glory because of it.